Pronunciation: ee-OH-plo-FY-sis
Meaning: Dawn armed form
Author/s: Ulansky (2014)
Synonyms: Omosaurus vetustus (Huene, 1910)
First Discovery: Oxfordshire, England
Discovery Chart Position: #889
Eoplophysis vetustus
Like most stegosaurs from the Jurassic of Europe, Eoplophysis is based on farcically fragmentary fossils. They were assigned to not one, nor two, but three separate critters before being afforded a standalone name. But even as we write, it's still causing mischief.
Based on a thighbone (OUM J.14000) from the Cornbrash Formation of Enslow Bridge, but perhaps churned up from the older and more fossil-rich Forest Marble given its battered state, Eoplophysis vetustus was initially assigned to Omosaurus (as Omosaurus vetustus) by Friedrich von Huene in 1910. That in itself is strange because Lucas, having discovered that Leidy's "crocodilian" (Omosaurus perplexus) occupied the name Omosaurus since 1856, had already chosen Dacentrurus as a replacement in 1902. Nevertheless, Omosaurus vetustus eventually made its way to Dacentrurus 62 years later courtesy of Oscar Kuhn, but it was only there for 21 years before Peter Malcolm Galton tentatively referred its remains to Lexovisaurus as Lexovisaurus vetustus.
Galton's reservations were justified as the dinosaurian equivalent of the Bible (the Dinosauria II) rejected his theory, merely listing Lexovisaurus vetustus alongside a big fat question mark to highlight its dubiosity, and ditto for Omosaurus vetustus. When Susannah Maidment and colleagues reviewed the anchor of Lexovisaurus (Lexovisaurus durobrivensis) in 2008, they found its holotype to be dubious, so it was in no position to be accepting new species, according to ICZN rules. Furthermore, they realised that the sole bone of Omosaurus vetustus (the thigh, OUM J.14000) sported features of both sauropods and stegosaurs but none that were exclusive to the latter, and thus consigned it to the dinosaur graveyard—"Dinosauria indet". That was the end of the story as far as professional palaeontologists were concerned, but someone less qualified had other ideas.
In 2014, freelance "palaeontologist" Roman Ulansky rode roughshod over Zoobank (the repository for official dinosaur names) and raised new taxa left, right, and centre. Amongst 12 in total, he coined Eoplophysis for Lexovisaurus vetustus, having concluded that OUM J.14000 was distinct from other stegosaurs, and not just because it probably isn't one. Worse still, he referred other Bathonian-age stegosaur remains from England to it based on little more than a whim. The vast majority of dinosaur experts have criticized Ulansky for assigning new names to species that have already been dismissed as dubious in respected publications and refuse to take them seriously because his serial self-publishing really gets their goat.
In any case, how can you trust a dinosaur with "plop" in its name?
Based on a thighbone (OUM J.14000) from the Cornbrash Formation of Enslow Bridge, but perhaps churned up from the older and more fossil-rich Forest Marble given its battered state, Eoplophysis vetustus was initially assigned to Omosaurus (as Omosaurus vetustus) by Friedrich von Huene in 1910. That in itself is strange because Lucas, having discovered that Leidy's "crocodilian" (Omosaurus perplexus) occupied the name Omosaurus since 1856, had already chosen Dacentrurus as a replacement in 1902. Nevertheless, Omosaurus vetustus eventually made its way to Dacentrurus 62 years later courtesy of Oscar Kuhn, but it was only there for 21 years before Peter Malcolm Galton tentatively referred its remains to Lexovisaurus as Lexovisaurus vetustus.
Galton's reservations were justified as the dinosaurian equivalent of the Bible (the Dinosauria II) rejected his theory, merely listing Lexovisaurus vetustus alongside a big fat question mark to highlight its dubiosity, and ditto for Omosaurus vetustus. When Susannah Maidment and colleagues reviewed the anchor of Lexovisaurus (Lexovisaurus durobrivensis) in 2008, they found its holotype to be dubious, so it was in no position to be accepting new species, according to ICZN rules. Furthermore, they realised that the sole bone of Omosaurus vetustus (the thigh, OUM J.14000) sported features of both sauropods and stegosaurs but none that were exclusive to the latter, and thus consigned it to the dinosaur graveyard—"Dinosauria indet". That was the end of the story as far as professional palaeontologists were concerned, but someone less qualified had other ideas.
In 2014, freelance "palaeontologist" Roman Ulansky rode roughshod over Zoobank (the repository for official dinosaur names) and raised new taxa left, right, and centre. Amongst 12 in total, he coined Eoplophysis for Lexovisaurus vetustus, having concluded that OUM J.14000 was distinct from other stegosaurs, and not just because it probably isn't one. Worse still, he referred other Bathonian-age stegosaur remains from England to it based on little more than a whim. The vast majority of dinosaur experts have criticized Ulansky for assigning new names to species that have already been dismissed as dubious in respected publications and refuse to take them seriously because his serial self-publishing really gets their goat.
In any case, how can you trust a dinosaur with "plop" in its name?
(Ancient dawn armoured form)Etymology
Eoplophysis is derived from the Greek "eo" (dawn), "hoplon" (a heavy shield carried by the Greek infantry known as "Hoplites"), and "physis" (form).
The species epithet, vetustus, means "ancient" in Latin. ZooBank registry: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:866BDB21-5E62-408E-A999-F8281BD615D5.
Discovery
The remains of Eoplophysis were discovered in the Cornbrash Formation at Enslow Bridge, near Oxford, England.
The holotype (OUM J.14000) is a juvenile right thigh, 60cm in length.
